


That Damn Donna Reed

by chaila



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaila/pseuds/chaila
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The strange thing is that Jenny kind of feels at home. Post-series 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Damn Donna Reed

**Author's Note:**

> For beccatoria on Galentine's Day 2012. Originally posted [here](http://chaila.dreamwidth.org/120270.html).

When Jenny wakes up, Alice Morgan is in the kitchen, doing something mysterious at the stove. 

Alice had shown up the previous evening. Actually, she had shown up at some undetermined point the day before. She had just been there on the couch when Jenny and John had gotten home, quite at her ease, her jacket draped across an arm of the couch and her shoes kicked off. John had been a confusing mix of angry, wary and, judging from a few looks that Jenny uncomfortably intercepted, amused and possibly a little impressed. John had immediately banished Jenny to the room that has sort of become hers by default, stopping just short of actually telling her to go to her room. She'd put up a good fight as the petulant, uncooperative kid, since the situation seemed to call for it and she likes to play her assigned role, but in the end had thought she might learn more from eavesdropping anyway. That hadn't actually worked. 

Now she's had all night to make the connection between this Alice and the Alice that John had bluffed siccing on Toby's grandmother--apparently not a bluff after all. Jenny can't tell if Alice is there again--picking a lock, coming through a window, who knows--or still there via the old-fashioned way of spending the night, but she's not about to ask. Yet. 

Jenny is not used to the routine of the mornings, with John in sweatpants like a real person, arguing with her about who used the last of the milk. To make this one even weirder, Alice has produced an apron from somewhere, which she has tied around her waist. Jenny and John, they go through cereal and milk pretty quickly, or the occasional donuts or toast, but they don’t usually cook. Yet Alice has procured eggs, sausage and tomatoes from somewhere. Maybe from the same place she got the apron.

Jenny peaks around the door frame for a few minutes, listening to Alice hum--actually hum--as she cooks, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to sneak up on this girl, so she clears her throat to announce her presence. Alice spins on her heel and smiles a bright performance smile, the kind Jenny herself is pretty good at when she tries. "Good morning, Genevieve," she says, brandishing a spatula.

Jenny stares. "Jenny," she corrects automatically

"Jenny," Alice repeats with relish. "Such a funny little name," she says with a quirk of her mouth. 

Jenny tries to stop her own mouth from gaping open like a stupid little fish or something, but she's trying to connect the lace on Alice's apron with the psycho killer girl in her imagination. "And you're Alice," she says, because she knows things too. She makes herself cross the room to stand next to Alice, under the pretense of seeing what's for breakfast. 

"We have so much to talk about," Alice says, turning back to stir the pan of eggs. "I can tell. But first, and forgive me, I'm just dying to know," Alice says, turning back to Jenny and leaning against the stove as the sausages sizzle, "Who is John Luther. To you." She smiles bigger, almost baring her teeth. 

The question is pretty suggestive and Jenny can't stop herself from rolling her eyes, apparently to Alice's amusement. She's pretty tired of people thinking she's sleeping with John. He's all right once you get to know him a bit, but he's so old. But her sarcastic reply dies on her lips, under Alice's gaze. "He's all right," she says instead. "We're friends. He helped me." 

"A man to slay the dragons," Alice drawls. "He does do that very well. But," she whispers confidentially, leaning in close to Jenny like she has a secret, "I prefer it when he's the dragon." 

Just as Jenny vows again to find out whether Alice spent the night or not, and gets the courage to turn the question back on Alice, John comes into the kitchen. He's wearing his customary cotton shirt and sweatpants--nothing to indicate how he spent last night--along with a disapproving expression. Jenny puts that expression in her mental "no" column. 

"Morning," he says, drawing the word out with a frown and stopping short in the doorway.

"Good morning, John," Alice greets him, twirling a fork in her hand as she crosses the room to where he's standing. "Were your ears burning?"

He watches her approach, holding his ground. "I don't know what you mean."

"We were just discussing your capabilities as a knight in shining armor," Alice says, leaning into his space. She lifts her hand to his face and trails her fingers along his jaw. "We decided you'd be brilliant," she says, tapping the fork against his chest, "given the right conditions." 

He stares her down for a few seconds before brushing past her into the kitchen.

Alice doesn't miss a beat. "Sit down, darling," she says, speaking either to John or Jenny, or both, and crossing back to the stove, "Breakfast's ready." 

Jenny could not tolerate this performance of normality from anyone else. This little scene calls up too many mornings with her mother, eyes streaked with last night's mascara and tears and still smelling of cheap wine, pulling the same trick, serving overcooked eggs and pulpy orange juice and not talking about anything that actually mattered. But somehow Alice Morgan makes it tolerable, and maybe even a little cool. 

Alice sets plates in front of John and Jenny, and sits across from them, smiling with her eyes over the rim of her coffee cup. 

John is watching her warily, yet with a hint of fondness, and he pokes at his eggs like they might be wired with explosives. Alice watches John with a look that isn't lust exactly--Jenny can identify that--but it's definitely something hungry, and self-satisfied enough for Jenny to lean back towards "yes" on the question of where Alice slept. 

The strange thing is that Jenny kind of feels at home. When her mum put on a show like this, she couldn't even stand it. The difference, Jenny decides as she stabs a piece of sausage with a fork, is that John, and even Alice, aren't really faking it. At least not in the same way her mum did, trying to pretend that they were a completely normal family, like nothing bad had ever happened. But she knew they weren't, she just wanted them to go through the motions anyway, like faking it would just fix everything that was broken. John and Alice, Jenny decides, just don't know how to do these normal things either. It's a bit like they're learning to do it together, not just pretending to do it. It just feels different. 

Jenny smiles back at Alice.


End file.
